The Dweller Sculpture

I am a child of the twentieth century. There were open roads coursed by convertibles without seat belts and fastbacks with earth pounding V-8 engines. Brave men piloted glorified tin cans propelled by massive rockets into “outer space”. We played outdoors, unsupervised until we were summoned for dinner, went on Sunday drives. Our black and white TV got seven channels (a couple more on a good day) and three were from Buffalo, NY. On every drive through town we passed sprawling limestone mills; their windows agape releasing the thundering sounds of power hammers and their blackened stacks whispering with acrid plumes. All this has passed. My life has turned in unexpected ways. With little planning and no defined goals, I acted on a decades old desire to create; to use my hands, to make something. I learned to manipulate metals; earthly elements. Methods, techniques, technologies were studied, experimented with, and practiced. My sculptural work is deeply rooted in that past century; the portion I witnessed and much that came before. But it is not nostalgic. Art deco skyscrapers, streamliners, air-cooled motorcycle engines, sci-fi movie sets and concept cars from Detroit: these are acknowledged; not mourned. Forms are always changing, in motion, leading me onward. I see in them something not wholly natural but they are alive none-the-less; a dialogue and a dance unfolds between the organic and the manufactured. These interactions are sometimes tense and threatening, sometimes melodic and serene, always genuine. David Cross Elora, Ontario 2018